in the following manner. Growing specimens of good colour and in fruit
are if possible selected, and cleansed as much as practicable from
adhering foreign particles, either in the sea or a rocky pool. Some
species rapidly change colour, and cause the decay of any others with
which they come in contact. This is especially the case with the
_Ectocarpi_, _Desmarestiae_, and a few others, which should therefore
be brought home in a separate vessel. In mounting, the specimen is
floated out in a flat white dish containing sea-water, so that foreign
matter may be detected, and a piece of paper of suitable size is
placed under it, supported either by the fingers of the left hand or
by a palette. It is then pruned, in order clearly to show the mode of
branching, and is spread out as naturally as possible with the right
hand. For this purpose a bone knitting-needle answers well for the
coarse species, and a camel's-hair pencil for the more delicate ones.
The paper with the specimen is then carefully removed from the water
by sliding it over the edge of the dish so as to drain it as much as
possible. If during this process part of the fronds run together, the
beauty of the specimen may be restored by dipping the edge into water,
so as to float out the part and allow it to subside naturally on the
paper. The paper, with the specimen upwards, is then laid on bibulous
paper for a few minutes to absorb as much as possible of the
superfluous moisture. When freed from excess of water it is laid on a
sheet of thick white blotting-paper, and a piece of smooth washed
calico is placed upon it (unwashed calico, on account of its "facing,"
adheres to the sea-weed). Another sheet of blotting-paper is then laid
over it; and, a number of similar specimens being formed into a pile,
the whole is submitted to pressure, the paper being changed every hour
or two at first. The pressure is increased, and the papers are changed
less frequently as the specimens become dry, which usually takes place
in thirty-six hours. Some species, especially those of a thick or
leathery texture, contract so much in drying that without strong
pressure the edges of the paper become puckered. Other species of a
gelatinous nature, like _Nemalion_ and _Dudresnaya_, may be allowed to
dry on the paper, and need not be submitted to pressure until they no
longer present a gelatinous appearance. Large coarse algae, such, for
instance, as the _Fucaceae_ and _Laminariae_, do not readily adhere to
paper, and require soaking for some time in fresh water before being
pressed. The less robust species, such as _Sphacelaria scoparia_,
which do not adhere well to paper, may be made to do so by brushing
them over either with milk carefully skimmed, or with a liquid formed
by placing isinglass (1/4 oz.) and water (1(1/2) oz.) in a wide-mouthed
bottle, and the bottle in a small glue-pot or saucepan containing cold
water, heating until solution is effected, and then adding 1 oz. of
rectified spirits of wine; the whole is next stirred together, and
when cold is kept in a stoppered bottle. For use, the mixture is
warmed to render it fluid, and applied by means of a camel's hair
brush to the under side of the specimen, which is then laid neatly on
paper. For the more delicate species, such as the _Callithamnia_ and
_Ectocarpi_, it is an excellent plan to place a small fruiting
fragment, carefully floated out in water, on a slip of mica of the
size of an ordinary microscopical slide, and allow it to dry. The
plant can then be at any time examined under the microscope without
injuring the mounted specimen. Many of the fresh-water algae which
form a mere crust, such as _Palmella cruenta_, may be placed in a
vessel of water, where after a time they float like a scum, the earthy
matter settling down to the bottom, and may then be mounted by
slipping a piece of mica under them and allowing it to dry.
_Oscillatoriae_ may be mounted by laying a portion on a silver coin
placed on a piece of paper in a plate, and pouring in water until the
edge of the coin is just covered. The alga by its own peculiar
movement will soon form a radiating circle, perfectly free from dirt,
around the coin, which may then be removed. There is considerable
difficulty in removing mounted specimens of algae from paper, and
therefore a small portion preserved on mica should accompany each
specimen, enclosed for safety in a small envelope fastened at one
corner of the sheet of paper. Filamentous diatoms may be mounted like
ordinary sea-weeds, and, as well as all parasitic algae, should
whenever possible be allowed to remain attached to a portion of the
alga on which they grow, some species being almost always found
parasitical on particular plants. Ordinary diatoms and desmids may be
mounted on mica, as above described, by putting a portion in a vessel
of water and exposing it to sunlight, when they rise to the surface,
and may be thus removed comparatively free from dirt or impurity.
Owing to their want of adhesiveness, they are, however, usually
mounted on glass as microscopic slides, either in glycerin jelly,
Canada balsam or some other suitable medium.
Lichens are generally mounted on sheets of paper of the ordinary size,
several specimens from different localities being laid upon one sheet,
each specimen having been first placed on a small square of paper
which is gummed on the sheet, and which has the locality, date, name
of collector, &c., written upon it. This mode has some disadvantages
attending it; such sheets are difficult to handle; the crustaceous
species are liable to have their surfaces rubbed; the foliaceous
species become so compressed as to lose their characteristic
appearance; and the spaces between the sheets caused by the thickness
of the specimen permit the entrance of dust. A plan which has been
found to answer well is to arrange them in cardboard boxes, either
with glass tops or in sliding covers, in drawers--the name being
placed outside each box and the specimens gummed into the boxes.
Lichens for the herbarium should, whenever possible, be sought for on
a slaty or laminated rock, so as to procure them on flat thin pieces
of the same, suitable for mounting. Specimens on the bark of trees
require pressure until the bark is dry, lest they become curled; and
those growing on sand or friable soil, such as _Coniocybe furfuracea_,
should be laid carefully on a layer of gum in the box in which they
are intended to be kept. Many lichens, such as the _Verrucariae_ and
_Collemaceae_, are found in the best condition during the winter
months. In mounting collemas it is advisable to let the specimen
become dry and hard, and then to separate a portion from adherent
mosses, earth, &c., and mount it separately so as to show the
branching of the thallus. _Pertusariae_ should be represented by both
fruiting and sorediate specimens.
The larger species of fungi, such as the _Agaricini_ and _Polyporei_,
&c., are prepared for the herbarium by cutting a slice out of the
centre of the plant so as to show the outline of the cap or pileus,
the attachment of the gills, and the character of the interior of the
stem. The remaining portions of the pileus are then lightly pressed,
as well as the central slices, between bibulous paper until dry, and
the whole is then "poisoned," and gummed on a sheet of paper in such a
manner as to show the under surface of the one and the upper surface
of the other half of the pileus on the same sheet. A "map" of the
spores should be taken by separating a pileus and placing it flat on a
piece of thin paper for a few hours when the spores will fall and
leave a nature print of the arrangement of the gills which may be
fixed by gumming the other side of the paper. As it is impossible to
preserve the natural colours of fungi, the specimens should, whenever
possible, be accompanied by a coloured drawing of the plant.
Microscopic fungi are usually preserved in envelopes, or simply
attached to sheets of paper or mounted as microscopic slides. Those
fungi which are of a dusty nature, and the _Myxomycetes_ or
_Mycetozoa_ may, like the lichens, be preserved in small boxes and
arranged in drawers. Fungi under any circumstances form the least
satisfactory portion of an herbarium.
Mosses when growing in tufts should be gathered just before the
capsules have become brown, divided into small flat portions, and
pressed lightly in drying paper. During this process the capsules
ripen, and are thus obtained in a perfect state. They are then
preserved in envelopes attached to a sheet of paper of the ordinary
size, a single perfect specimen being washed, and spread out under the
envelope so as to show the habit of the plant. For attaching it to the
paper a strong mucilage of gum tragacanth, containing an eighth of its
weight of spirit of wine, answers best. If not preserved in an
envelope the calyptra and operculum are very apt to fall off and
become lost. Scale-mosses are mounted in the same way, or may be
floated out in water like sea-weeds, and dried in white blotting paper
under strong pressure before gumming on paper, but are best mounted as
microscopic slides, care being taken to show the stipules. The
specimens should be collected when the capsules are just appearing
above or in the colesule or calyx; if kept in a damp saucer they soon
arrive at maturity, and can then be mounted in better condition, the
fruit-stalks being too fragile to bear carriage in a botanical tin
case without injury.
Of the _Characeae_ many are so exceedingly brittle that it is best to
float them out like sea-weeds, except the prickly species, which may
be carefully laid out on bibulous paper, and when dry fastened on
sheets of white paper by means of gummed strips. Care should be taken
in collecting charae to secure, in the case of dioecious species,
specimens of both forms, and also to get when possible the roots of
those species on which the small granular starchy bodies or gemmae are
found, as in _C. fragifera_. Portions of the fructification may be
preserved in small envelopes attached to the sheets.
HERBART, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1776-1841), German philosopher and
educationist, was born at Oldenburg on the 4th of May 1776. After
studying under Fichte at Jena he gave his first philosophical lectures
at Gottingen in 1805, whence he removed in 1809 to occupy the chair
formerly held by Kant at Konigsberg. Here he also established and
conducted a seminary of pedagogy till 1833, when he returned once more
to Gottingen, and remained there as professor of philosophy till his
death on the 14th of August 1841.
Philosophy, according to Herbart, begins with reflection upon our
empirical conceptions, and consists in the reformation and elaboration
of these--its three primary divisions being determined by as many
distinct forms of elaboration. Logic, which stands first, has to
render our conceptions and the judgments and reasonings arising from
them clear and distinct. But some conceptions are such that the more
distinct they are made the more contradictory their elements become;
so to change and supplement these as to make them at length thinkable
is the problem of the second part of philosophy, or metaphysics. There
is still a class of conceptions requiring more than a logical
treatment, but differing from the last in not involving latent
contradictions, and in being independent of the reality of their
objects, the conceptions, viz. that embody our judgments of approval
and disapproval; the philosophic treatment of these conceptions falls
to Aesthetic.
In Herbart's writings logic receives comparatively meagre notice; he
insisted strongly on its purely formal character, and expressed
himself in the main at one with Kantians such as Fries and Krug.
As a metaphysician he starts from what he terms "the higher
scepticism" of the Hume-Kantian sphere of thought, the beginnings of
which he discerns in Locke's perplexity about the idea of substance.
By this scepticism the real validity of even the _forms_ of experience
is called in question on account of the contradictions they are found
to involve. And yet that these forms are "given" to us, as truly as
sensations are, follows beyond doubt when we consider that we are as
little able to control the one as the other. To attempt at this stage
a psychological inquiry into the origin of these conceptions would be
doubly a mistake; for we should have to use these unlegitimated
conceptions in the course of it, and the task of clearing up their
contradictions would still remain, whether we succeeded in our enquiry
or not. But how are we to set about this task? We have given to us a
conception A uniting among its constituent marks two that prove to be
contradictory, say M and N; and we can neither deny the unity nor
reject one of the contradictory members. For to do either is forbidden
by experience; and yet to do nothing is forbidden by logic. We are
thus driven to the assumption that the conception is contradictory
because incomplete; but how are we to supplement it? What we have must
point the way to what we want, or our procedure will be arbitrary.
Experience asserts that M is the same (i.e. a mark of the same
concept) as N, while logic denies it; and so--it being impossible for
one and the same M to sustain these contradictory positions--there is
but one way open to us; we must posit _several_ Ms. But even now we
cannot say one of these Ms is the same as N, another is not; for every
M must be both thinkable and valid. We may, however, take the Ms not
singly but together; and again, no other course being open to us, this
is what we must do; we must assume that N results from a combination
of Ms. This is Herbart's method of relations, the counterpart in his
system of the Hegelian dialectic.
In the _Ontology_ this method is employed to determine what in reality
corresponds to the empirical conceptions of substance and cause, or
rather of inherence and change. But first we must analyse this notion
of reality itself, to which our scepticism had already led us, for,
though we could doubt whether "the given" is what it appears, we
cannot doubt that it is something; the conception of the real thus
consists of the two conceptions of being and quality. That which we
are compelled to "posit," which cannot be sublated, is that which
_is_, and in the recognition of this lies the simple conception of
being. But when is a thing thus posited? When it is posited as we are
wont to posit the things we see and taste and handle. If we were
without sensations, i.e. were never bound against our will to endure
the persistence of a presentation, we should never know what being is.
Keeping fast hold of this idea of absolute position, Herbart leads us
next to the quality of the real. (1) This must exclude everything
negative; for non-A sublates instead of positing, and is not absolute,
but relative to A. (2) The real must be absolutely simple; for if it
contain two determinations, A and B, then either these are reducible
to one, which is the true quality, or they are not, when each is
conditioned by the other and their position is no longer absolute. (3)
All quantitative conceptions are excluded, for quantity implies parts,
and these are incompatible with simplicity. (4) But there may be a
plurality of "reals," albeit the mere conception of being can tell us
nothing as to this. The doctrine here developed is the first cardinal
point of Herbart's system, and has obtained for it the name of
"pluralistic realism."
The contradictions he finds in the common-sense conception of
inherence, or of "a thing with several attributes," will now become
obvious. Let us take some thing, say A, having n attributes, a, b,
c...: we are forced to posit each of these because each is presented
in intuition. But in conceiving A we make, not n positions, still less
n + 1 positions, but one position simply; for common sense removes the
absolute position from its original source, sensation. So when we ask,
What is the one posited? we are told--the possessor of a, b, c..., or
in other words, their seat or substance. But if so, then A, as a real,
being simple, must = a; similarly it must = b; and so on. Now this
would be possible if a, b, c ... were but "contingent aspects" of A,
as e.g. 2^3, [root]64, 4 + 3 + 1 are contingent aspects of 8. Such, of
course, is not the case, and so we have as many contradictions as
there are attributes; for we must say A is a, is not a, is b, is not
b, &c. There must then, according to the method of relations, be
several As. For a let us assume A1 + A1 + A1...; for b, A2 + A2 +
A2...; and so on for the rest. But now what relation can there be
among these several As, which will restore to us the unity of our
original A or substance? There is but one; we must assume that the
first A of every series is identical, just as the centre is the same
point in every radius. By way of concrete illustration Herbart
instances "the common observation that the properties of things exist
only under external conditions. Bodies, we say, are coloured, but
colour is nothing without light, and nothing without eyes. They sound,
but only in a vibrating medium, and for healthy ears. Colour and tone
present the appearance of inherence, but on looking closer we find
they are not really immanent in things but rather presuppose a
communion among several." The result then is briefly thus: In place of
the one absolute position, which in some unthinkable way the common
understanding substitutes for the absolute positions of the n
attributes, we have really a series of two or more positions for each
attribute, every series, however, beginning with the same (as it were,
central) real (hence the unity of substance in a group of attributes),
but each being continued by different reals (hence the plurality and
difference of attributes in unity of substance). Where there is the
appearance of inherence, therefore, there is always a plurality of
reals; no such correlative to substance as attribute or accident can
be admitted at all. Substantiality is impossible without causality,
and to this as its true correlative we now turn.
The common-sense conception of change involves at bottom the same
contradiction of opposing qualities in one real. The same A that was
a, b, c ... becomes a, b, d...; and this, which experience thrusts
upon us, proves on reflection unthinkable. The metaphysical
supplementing is also fundamentally as before. Since c depended on a
series of reals A3 + A3 + A3 ... in connexion with A, and d may be
said similarly to depend on a series A4 + A4 + A4..., then the change
from c to d means, not that the central real A or any real has
changed, but that A is now in connexion with A4, &c., and no longer in
connexion with A3, &c.
But to think a number of reals "in connexion" (_Zusammensein_) will
not suffice as an explanation of phenomena; something or other must
happen when they are in connexion; what is it? The answer to this
question is the second hinge-point of Herbart's theoretical
philosophy. What "actually happens" as distinct from all that seems to
happen, when two reals A and B are together is that, assuming them to
differ in quality, they tend to disturb each other to the extent of
that difference, at the same time that each preserves itself intact by
resisting, as it were, the other's disturbance. And so by coming into
connexion with different reals the "self-preservations" of A will vary
accordingly, A remaining the same through all; just as, by way of
illustration, hydrogen remains the same in water and in ammonia, or as
the same line may be now a normal and now a tangent. But to indicate
this opposition in the qualities of the reals A + B, we must
substitute for these symbols others, which, though only "contingent
aspects" of A and B, i.e. representing their relations, not
themselves, yet like similar devices in mathematics enable thought to
advance. Thus we may put A = [alpha] + [beta] - [gamma], B = m + n +
[gamma]; [gamma] then represents the character of the
self-preservations in this case, and [alpha] + [beta] + m + n
represents all that could be observed by a spectator who did not know
the simple qualities, but was himself involved in the relations of A
to B; and such is exactly our position.
Having thus determined what really is and what actually happens, our
philosopher proceeds next to explain synthetically the objective
semblance (_der objective Schein_) that results from these. But if
this construction is to be truly objective, i.e. valid for all
intelligences, ontology must furnish us with a clue. This we have in
the forms of Space, Time and Motion which are involved whenever we
think the reals as being in, or coming into, connexion and the
opposite. These forms then cannot be merely the products of our
psychological mechanism, though they may turn out to coincide with
these. Meanwhile let us call them "intelligible," as being valid for
all who comprehend the real and actual by thought, although no such
forms are predicable of the real and actual themselves. The elementary
spatial relation Herbart conceives to be "the contiguity
(_Aneinander_) of two points," so that every "pure and independent
line" is discrete. But an investigation of dependent lines which are
often incommensurable forces us to adopt the contradictory fiction of
partially overlapping, i.e. divisible points, or in other words, the
conception of Continuity.[1] But the contradiction here is one we
cannot eliminate by the method of relations, because it does not
involve anything real; and in fact as a necessary outcome of an
"intelligible" form, the fiction of continuity is valid for the
"objective semblance," and no more to be discarded than say
[root](-1). By its help we are enabled to comprehend what actually
happens among reals to produce the appearance of matter. When three or
more reals are together, each disturbance and self-preservation will
(in general) be imperfect, i.e. of less intensity than when only two
reals are together. But "objective semblance" corresponds with
reality; the spatial or external relations of the reals in this case
must, therefore, tally with their inner or actual states. Had the
self-preservations been perfect, the coincidence in space would have
been complete, and the group of reals would have been inextended; or
had the several reals been simply contiguous, i.e. without connexion,
then, as nothing would actually have happened, nothing would appear.
As it is we shall find a continuous molecule manifesting attractive
and repulsive forces; attraction corresponding to the tendency of the
self-preservations to become perfect, repulsion to the frustration of
this. Motion, even more evidently than space, implicates the
contradictory conception of continuity, and cannot, therefore, be a
real predicate, though valid as an intelligible form and necessary to
the comprehension of the objective semblance. For we have to think of
the reals as absolutely independent and yet as entering into
connexions. This we can only do by conceiving them as originally
moving through intelligible space in rectilinear paths and with
uniform velocities. For such motion no cause need be supposed; motion,
in fact, is no more a state of the moving real than rest is, both
alike being but relations, with which, therefore, the real has no
concern. The changes in this motion, however, for which we _should_
require a cause, would be the objective semblance of the
self-preservations that actually occur when reals meet. Further, by
means of such motion these actual occurrences, which are in themselves
timeless, fall for an observer in a definite time--a time which
becomes continuous through the partial coincidence of events.
But in all this it has been assumed that we are spectators of the
objective semblance; it remains to make good this assumption, or, in
other words, to show the possibility of knowledge; this is the problem
of what Herbart terms Eidolology, and forms the transition from
metaphysic to psychology. Here, again, a contradictory conception
blocks the way, that, viz. of the Ego as the identity of knowing and
being, and as such the stronghold of idealism. The contradiction
becomes more evident when the ego is defined to be a subject (and so a
real) that is its own object. As real and not merely formal, this
conception of the ego is amenable to the method of relations. The
solution this method furnishes is summarily that there are several
objects which mutually modify each other, and so constitute that ego
we take for the presented real. But to explain this modification is
the business of psychology; it is enough now to see that the subject
like all reals is necessarily unknown, and that, therefore, the
idealist's theory of knowledge is unsound. But though the simple
quality of the subject or soul is beyond knowledge, we know what
actually happens when it is in connexion with other's reals, for its
self-preservations then are what we call sensations. And these
sensations are the sole material of our knowledge; but they are not
given to us as a chaos but in definite groups and series, whence we
come to know the relations of those reals, which, though themselves
unknown, our sensations compel us to posit absolutely.